There they were, at 10,000 feet on the remote and rugged slopes of the Mauna Kea volcano on the big island of Hawaii, running their robot through the same volcanic soil NASA uses to test space rovers. “This was otherworldly,” said Jim Heise, the faculty advisor for Cyclone Space Mining. Six teams of students from …Continue reading “Cyclone Space Mining competes in Hawaii; once again demonstrates it has built a strong robotic miner”
Even though other teams have started to copy some of their winning ideas, the student-engineers of Cyclone Space Mining feel good about defending last year’s NASA championship. “That’s all right,” David Peiffer, a junior in industrial engineering from Marion and the president of Iowa State’s robotic mining club, said of the copycat teams. “We’ve had issues in the past and …Continue reading “Cyclone Space Mining ready to defend title at NASA Robotic Mining Competition”
The NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium (ISGC) selected a proposal by Hui Hu, professor of aerospace engineering, that would build a stronger relationship between NASA and Iowa State University. Hu wrote a proposal seeking “support to establish a research and education integrated program to facilitate the long-term research and education collaboration” between Iowa State and …Continue reading “Aerospace professor Hui Hu awarded new base program for Iowa Space Grant Consortium”
A strict series of physical requirements must be met in order to earn the coveted position of a NASA astronaut: 20/20 corrected vision, 140/90 blood pressure, and a height between 62 and 75 inches. At 5 feet tall, only two inches separated Michaela Antolak from her lifelong dream. Growing up near the Johnson Space Center, …Continue reading “Michaela Antolak: ‘If I can’t be an astronaut, I’ll build the rockets’”
A plan by an Iowa State University professor to save the planet from a meteor collision continues to streak toward reality. The problem being puzzled over at the Asteroid Deflection Research Center in Ames would devastate humanity: an asteroid hurtling toward the planet, detected too late to be able to use other means to knock …Continue reading “Anti-asteroid nuke gains steam”
After earning his Ph.D. this past August, Eliseo De León began his first year teaching at Iowa State University as a lecturer of materials science and engineering. De León earned a bachelor’s in chemistry and a bachelor’s in theater at the University of California, Davis in 1994. He started his Ph.D. program in materials science …Continue reading “Materials science and engineering lecturer built energy storage systems for NASA, teaches classes at Iowa State”
Batteries have become such a modern day convenience that many times we don’t think about them until they need recharged or replaced. Even in space, batteries make life easier by advancing exploration when they are used in land rovers, astronaut equipment and energy storage devices. But creating a battery for space exploration requires some interesting …Continue reading “Developing new batteries for space exploration”
Six students from the College of Engineering were awarded NASA scholarships for the fall 2013 and spring 2014 semesters. The funding comes through the Iowa Space Grant Consortium program. Recipients are Dalton Groath, sophomore in aerospace engineering; Jacob Harry, senior in aerospace engineering; Christian Setzer, senior in aerospace engineering and physics; Elmer Tse, junior in …Continue reading “Six NASA scholarships awarded to undergraduate students”
In 1998, Clayton Anderson was a 29-year-old aerospace engineer who wanted to fulfill his childhood dream of going to space, but NASA was stopping him. He applied 15 times and received as many rejection letters. On his sixteenth try, which he had already decided would be his last, he was accepted. In January, with 167 …Continue reading “Aerospace alum rejected by NASA 15 times before going to space”
Guest post by Katie Goebel, project director for Iowa State’s Team LunaCY It’s always worth the drive. Twenty some hours in one of two vans full of goofy college kids and an even goofier advisor on a trip to Florida already sounds like the beginning to an interesting story. The story gets even better when one …Continue reading “Guest post: Team LunaCY’s recipe for success: Dedication and fun”
For some, having a full-time job and a family along with studying for a master’s degree would probably be enough to keep busy. Lee Graham, on the other hand, does all that while working at NASA, mentoring at three local high schools and helping with STEM education efforts in various ways—among other things. Graham, a …Continue reading “NASA engineer Lee Graham credits Iowa State for diverse skills”
For some, having a full-time job and a family along with studying for a master’s degree would probably be enough to keep busy. Lee Graham, on the other hand, does all that while working at NASA, mentoring at three local high schools and helping with STEM education efforts in various ways—among other things. Graham, a …Continue reading “NASA engineer Lee Graham credits Iowa State for diverse skills”
Part of the mission at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, is to ‘pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.’ That is exactly what two aerospace engineering students from Iowa State had the opportunity to experience this past summer while serving as interns for the agency. For Michaela Antolak …Continue reading “Aerospace engineering students spend summer interning for NASA”
Christopher Reis, senior in electrical engineering, and a team of undergraduate and graduate students from across the engineering college recently won a $4,000 grant from NASA to build a nanosatellite, or a satellite with a 1kg maximum mass, called CySat. The satellite will meet CubeSat qualifications, which were conceived as an economic alternative for universities …Continue reading “Engineering students awarded NASA grant for satellite proposal”
Iowa State grad Clayton Anderson says the United States will eventually put people on Mars. NASA will fight through its current budget- and politics-inspired malaise to continue space station missions and build toward a trip to Mars, a now-grounded Iowa State University-educated astronaut predicted Thursday. Astronaut Clayton Anderson, who spent five months on the International …Continue reading “CoE alum confident NASA will rebound from ‘limbo’”
